International Conference on Fire Toxicity to gather world leaders in fire and hazard science

Event to address the growing death toll from smoke inhalation

Today marks the launch of the international conference Fire Toxicity 2016, a three-day event held at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), providing the only international forum for experts from across the world to highlight research and open discussion on the hazards of fire smoke.

Topics up for discussion at the 2016 gathering include lessons learned from major fire disasters, smoke toxicity and the effect of combustion conditions, clinical care of fire smoke injuries, the physiological effects of fire toxicants, and the introduction of new European regulations in fire toxicity.

UCLan Professor of Chemistry and Fire Science Richard Hull is co-organising the event with Dr Anna Stec. He said: “This is a very exciting conference. Coming at the time when regulators are starting to realise the hazards of fire effluents, both to fire victims and fire fighters, this meeting will bring together world-leading experts from healthcare, fire science and engineering and regulatory authorities to see what must be done to save lives.”

This is a very exciting conference. This meeting will bring together world-leading experts from healthcare, fire science and engineering and regulatory authorities to see what must be done to save lives.

The conference draws speakers from an international pool, including medical experts from the Universities of Arizona and Leuven, the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the British Burn Association; fire scientists from the University of Waterloo, Canada, The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, SP Technical Research Institute, Sweden, Effectis Laboratories in France, and the UK government’s Chief Fire Advisor, Mr Peter Holland. Finally, and most crucially, the Director of European Commission for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs will discuss the options for introducing fire toxicity regulation into the European Construction Products Regulations.